Seven Days in Sin City

For the last couple of years, I’ve made the trip out to Las Vegas after Thanksgiving to take part in Amazon AWS re:Invent. Last year’s trip chronicle can be found here: http://arcadeshenanigans.com/blog/2017/12/2/vegas-arcade-y-goodness-at-amazon-aws-reinvent?rq=vegas

AWS is Amazon’s technology and web-services division. Before Microsoft pushed the branding of “Cloud” into the collective conscience with Microsoft Azure, AWS was already there and already disrupting the industry in creative ways. The over-simplified Genesis story of AWS was that Amazon built highly scalable and resilient web-services platforms to serve Amazon’s growing needs. Someone on Andy Jassy’s team emoted: “Hey, I’ll bet we could see this stuff.” and presto-change-o, Amazon Web Services was formed.

In 2018, Amazon Web Services had around $26 billion in revenue and have a profit margin 5x larger than Amazon Retail in North America. AWS averaged 28% operating profit margin while AWS North American Retail averaged 5.1%.

All this to say, AWS is kind of a big deal and this annual conference is pretty massive. It takes up the majority of the Las Vegas strip.

This means lots of walking :)

But what does this have to do with Arcades and Gaming? Re-Invent, knowing their nerd audience tends to work gamer references into the curriculum.
Last year, the certification materials were based on the theme of an 8-bit adventure. This year, a Pac-Man reference during a keynote discussion about Machine Learning advances.

re:Play Party

The end of the work-week feature the re:Play party. Three football-field sized venues, this year erected on the Festival Grounds.

Building One is the Club Tent, featuring DJ acts, a respectable collection of classic arcades. Skrillex was the headline act.

New York, New York

Exploring Vegas after the conference, I always try to drop in the Arcade at New York, New York. Here you find most of the recent Stern releases. The machines are well maintained and there is never a line to play.

Pinball Hall of Fame

The Pinball Hall of Fame is a $12 Uber trip from hotels on the strip. Rumor has it that it is moving closer to the strip in 2019.

Each time I’ve been to Pinball Hall of Fame on a weeknight it is almost always empty of patrons. There were a few folks running around servicing games, this time.

The parking lot of Pinball Hall of Fame. It was a ghost-town.

A Gamer’s Paradise

Next door to Pinball Hall of Fame (in an adjoining parking lot) is a non-chain classic gaming store.

The store has arcades and pinballs in the back (for sale at typical retail markup) and a vast collection of classic console gaming items at a fair price. I picked up an Atari 2600 and had it shipped home.

Home Sweet Home

I’m not much of gambler and 7 days is really too long, especially around The Holidays. I was very-glad for the flight home and the quiet sanity of Alabama. :)

Fall 2018 Game List

Sometimes, in this hobby you get to a point where you think: "Okay, now I'm done."  But, you seldom really are :)

That said, I think my gameroom titles are more-than-likely locked in for the remainder of 2018, with one potential exception.

Youtube rejected my first recording of this b/c of background music so I reshot it pretty quickly without voiceover and turned down the gameroom music.

The Arcades

Tron

My Tron has some of the usual lower particle board damage but isn't bad. The Artwork and Marquee are pretty good but not perfect. Let's call it authentic battle-damage. :) Picked it up from a Pawn shop in Saraland thinks to a heads up from fellow collector-friend, Mike.

Tapper

Owning a 3400 in 1 Games Family Multi-Cade I noticed my wife always played Tapper on it. Took awhile to find this one and a little work to get it to this point. Reproduction CPO, powder coated cup holders. Monitor issues galore... I eventually found an overpriced 19" Vision Pro CRT that works well in it with original mounting and wiring. It has the high score save kit & switching power supply on a factory harness.

Nintendo Hyperspin

A couple years ago I came by this empty cabinet while it was on its way to the dump. No monitor, power supply or anything. I put Super Mario Artwork on it and a PC running Hyperspin. Recently I realized by the serial number on the cabinet that this was, at some point a Donkey Kong. I’m planning on do a conversion back to DK on this cabinet soon.

Star Wars

Many Bothan's died to bring this arcade to my game room. Procured from Michael @ Automated Services / pinballs.com. I parted with a Star Wars Trilogy stand up to make room for it, first part of 2018. I fixed the marquee light and worked out some cabinet swell. It has some typical wood-hardener-repairs on the cabinet bottom. It has a Wells 6100, Empire Strikes Back kit as well. I replaced a damaged AVG chip with a modern remade AVG chip, recapped the power supply and fixed some sound-issues to get it to this point.

Q*Bert

This is the Arcadeshop remake Q*Bert Cabinet running the Mylstar FPGA boardset. Modern switching power supply and this machine and recently mounted a NIB 19" CRT w/ a custom-built chassis. The knocker works too! Fun game.

Robotron

Original Robotron cabinet with a late series Wells 19" CRT. I believe it was an ArcadeShop machine back when they had CRT's available. A number of board issues, so it is currently running the FPGA multi-Williams board and direct booting to Robotron. The multi-Williams control panel is pictured here but it also has a Robotron Control panel that appears to have been adapted from a Bubbles. Original Wico sticks on the Robotron Panel, Groovy Game Gear leaf switch sticks on this control panel. The original boards are stashed away safely for "one-day-maybe" troubleshooting and repair.

The Mutt

After a few failed attempts at acquiring some cabarets, this happened. It started as a joke, re: "Hey here's this thing, it's a piece of junk anyway and you won't owe it anything, just have fun with it." Typically found for $100 or less, the Konami 12 in 1 is my RPi3 MAME cabinet for discovery and play of vertically oriented arcades. The 15" VGA monitor and small cabinet footprint paired with the RaspberryJAMMA / ArPiCade setup are going to make it a pretty versatile little game that isn't taking up a ton of space. The Attract-Mode, Raspberry Pi-based Multi-MAME boot image is ridiculously customizable if you are comfortable with linux command-line and bash scripts. Converting it to JAMMA and using VGA to CGA adaptor, the front hatch access will make it a convenient test bench for JAMMA games. Currently working on building a different control panel with less-crappy stick and switches. I'd kinda like to find the Midway 12 in 1, equivalent horizontal cabinet now...

The Cocktail

The first arcade I ever bought.. Picked it up from a central-Florida area arcade repurposing business. I overpaid and it arrived smell like Geritol and discount Wal-mart paint. Featuring a 60 in 1 , wrong controls and a sketchy slot machine monitor barely hanging onto a rebuilt top. Sketchy power supply, dead bugs and rusted-through leg levelers rounded out this $1050 Craigslist find. I didn't know any better. Custom cut glass, new control panels, new controls, new wiring harness, new power supply and running ArcadeSD, this arcade gets more play than any other in the room.

Multi Mortal Kombat

No side art on the cabinet so I'm not sure what it was originally but the inside stickers and serial numbers all match a MK4. Added IL sticks and fresh buttons. Still needs some T-molding and a little cabinet love. I added Mortal Kombat 1, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate to Mortal Kombat 4 via a JAMMA switcher and a vertical rack. It also has a Pandora's box on a spare JAMMA Channel for exploration of horizontal arcades. This winter, I'm planning to add two auxillary LCD panels to the marquee and a deep-learning enabled camera to provide glanceable real time moves-and-fatalities to each player based on their current game and character choice.

Mario Kart Arcade GP 2

Hands down my most expensive and time consuming arcade-effort has been in the acquisition, repair and maintenance of these two Mario Kart Arcade GP machines. Both machines are running HAPP LCDs in order to get compatibility with the new version running in the game, Mario Kart Arcade GP 2. 4 Triforce Main PC's, 4 cameras and two force feedback controllers later, they run and stand out as my kids' favorite. The problem areas are the wheel control loom being pinched by a cam in the steering column (item button not lit), camera failures in POE power transmission and force feedback controller failures (usually relays) related to walk-aways during a game and the carts vibrating themselves down the track at default speed.

The Dome

The Dome is my custom-built Star Wars Battle Pod wanna-be. Its strengths are racing games, flight sims, space games. Its weaknesses are First/Third Person shooters and sheer size. Currently running w/ a PS3, xBox 360 and Wii U which all exhibited a good selection of titles for this format. I've also used it as a mixed experience sit-down VR booth with a PS4. Future enhancements to this would be to acquire a professional quality planetarium optic for direct projection or upgraded first-surface lab-grade mirror for improved reflected projection. However, this is currently the only Arcade game that I consider "for sale" and even then only because of its size. If I sell the dome, it opens up some rearrange opportunities in the game room.

The Pinballs

Indiana Jones

The longest lasting Pinball in my collection, Indy is still my favorite pinball. An upgraded player's quality game, it has custom golden-vein, relic-inspired powder-coated metals. It is running a customized Pinsound orchestration to bring John Williams iconic sound to the gameplay experience but still nods to the original mix quite well. The playfield is pretty good and the plastics look great. It has OCD LED on the controlled lamps and I recently went back to incandescents in the GI, trying to add the warm-fire-glow back to the game. The side art has alot of fade and a few gashes. Instead of cabinet decal, I'd like to find a mural artist to brighten the colors back but keep the original elements in-tact.

Tales of the Arabian Nights

Low production numbers and not being part of the current projected CG Remake roadmap seems to make this a hard pin to find. Having a designer who was nearly run out of pinball and being the free table offered in Pinball Arcade probably didn't hurt, either. Scarcity and such. Acquired from Big Bob in Atlanta, by far this game came to me in the nicest condition of any game I've ever bought. The Mike Chestnut-gold plating on the rails has a few wear marks but not enough to make me want to undo the legend's work. I added OCD LED and GI LED. It isn't as purple and blue as it appears in the photo. Color Changing LEDs in the BAZAAR inserts are one of my favorite additions to this game.

Attack from Mars

One of the byproducts of the CG Remakes is that games that were once astronomically priced can now be in the cloud-city price range, instead. This is a player's quality game with alot of additions and repairs. It came missing the strobe electronics and with various issues in the saucer area. New ramps, upgraded strobe board, reworked the power driver board, fixed a few careless grounds and it was back in business. Added chrome-plated metals from Pinball Plating, OCD LED board on the controlled lamps and Convolux protectors for extra pop. A few wear spots with sloppy mylar work left to address on the playfield but nothing major.

Star Trek: The Next Outlane

Second time around with this title.. Bought one and a sold it to get Stern's Star Trek. Eventually I came back to STTNG through a convoluted trade of my Ghostbusters. The cabinet is really nice with nearly no fade and the playfield cleaned up very well, shows minimum wear. It came with a RD MPU board and I'm still looking for an original WPC-95 MPU to swap back in because of some (very) subtle differences.

Scared Stiff

Another title that I've previously owned and came back around to. Limited production numbers and the hard life of living in a bar, increasingly make this title hard to find for a decent price. An abundance of new pinball, rumors of a future Elvira themed game and a somewhat shallow gameplay dynamic helped to bring this game into my price range. A pretty nice player's quality game, it was at a pinball clubhouse & weed dispensary in the Rhode Island area. The power driver board has some interesting hacks and the left portion of the cabinet has a substantial fade in the Red accents. I'm a little young to have been a consumer of Elvira's TV shenanigans but I really appreciate that this is an all-around fun game and in my opinion the all-around winner for best Halloween theme. Just the right amount of dime-store knock-off Boris Karloff and playfully suggestive callouts mashed with classic 90's feeling generic halloween music make for an excellent sound design. The shots have excellent flow and a nice balance of control versus random bounce. My favorite edition to the pin is the MindOrbits color changing shooter knob and the custom bony-beast lighting.

Medieval Madness

For a couple of years I've let myself get talked out of buying this pin. The excuses ranged from the high average cost to the shot-map similarity with AFM and MB. This summer CG ran another batch of remakes for this title and they started showing up in distributor inventory. Typically, whenever distributor inventory stacks up on a re-make you can temporarily find an original for less-than MSRP of the Remake. Medieval Madness is my newest pin and last new-to-me pinball for 2018. Really enjoying it so far!

SFGE 2018

The Calm before the Fun-Storm.

Southern Fried Game Room Expo continues to be my favorite show each year. It just feels like family :)

If.. my family was way more awesome and there are 300 games, an indie movie festival, music, wrestling all sorts of awesomeness..

If.. my family was way more awesome and there are 300 games, an indie movie festival, music, wrestling all sorts of awesomeness..

The Load Up

The thing about our local arcade community is: we have super-solid people. There aren’t a lot of us but we help each other out!

Charlie pulled the trailer and handed the rental and brought up Monopoly, Genesis, Lord of the Rings just to name a few. :) Cody brought Creech (and a super cool special presentation) and I took my Data East Star Wars this time and it got 682 plays over the weekend - and was rock solid :)

Gaming Floor Walk-Through

Family Fun

Cody’s Creech!

You ever seen an environmental Creech? If you were at SFGE 2018, you did. Cody’s CFTBL is gorgeous and mean to play, which makes me love it even more for some reason.

ohm-matched surround sound. yeah!

Vendors!

SFGE always has a good Vendor game and this year was no exception. Plenty of space and plenty of cool offerings from really friendly and enthusiastic vendors.

As always, Marco Specialties brought their A-Game with this epic pyramid of new Pinball. Show specials, parts, shirts & Swag - a little bit of everything and a whole lot of NIB Pinball to flip.

Flip N Out Pinball has been a solid supporter of SFGE every year that I’ve attended. They bring some of the harder to find Premium titles and sometimes you’ll find industry-folks in their show space. They brought the latest from Jersey Jack Pinball, Chicago Gaming / Planetary Pinball & American Pinball. Also, Escalera’s are awesome.

Hard to Find Titles

I was able to get 2 balls in on JJP POTC but unfortunately the game kept breaking down every time I tried to play it. I took it as a personal rejection, not a quality issue w/ the pin. Maybe it just didn’t like me - seems like others really enjoyed it!

Speaking of Rum…

Seeing my old POTC on the show floor was a little bit like seeing an ex-girlfriend happy with her new beau. Probably shouldn’t have sold this game but at least it went to a solid dude who appreciates it!

KingPin

Mark Ritchie’s KingPin was provided on the floor by Circus Maximus for us to flip. They were selling art, toppers & Swag to help fund the project. I’m a huge fan of MR games, this one shot great!

Star Wars LE

Finally got a chance to play Star Wars LE and they had the sound cranked all of the way up, which was nice. :) I liked it.

Games!

Did I mention there are alot of games? Like.. over 300 or so… this becomes the largest Arcade in Georgia and probably the largest functional arcade in the Southeast for the weekend.

Charity!

Project Pinball is an excellent charity, run by an awesome group of people.

Pinvasion!

Pinvasion V really stands out as a next-level pinball tournament. This year it was moved off into a different portion of the hotel, which seemed to work really well. This is always a super-well-organized and highly attended tournament.

This year, my daughter really wanted to try her hand at some competitive pinball. She was already IFPA listed from a previous tournament and was feeling the competitive itch.

Ultimately, in order to (really) compete in the tournament takes a level of dedication and focus that we lacked this year but she still had a great time.

Shenanigans!

We were… on the other hand, dedicated and focused in taking part in some Shenanigans. Jena’s inflatable T-Rex is always a hit. :)

Uploaded by Arcade Shenanigans on 2018-06-21.

BRRAAAAIIIINNNNSS! (No, really - brains!) Cody is an incredible player and wealth of pinball and arcade knowledge from rules and play to anything repair related.

If you stand still long enough, Billy might sign you.

Personalities & Industry Celebs

This was the year I developed a crush on Cabarets. Tried to buy this one, actually but it was some sort of relay-phone dead-drop communication scenario where you left a message under a park bench with your offer and someone randomly scribbled on a piece of toilet paper in the center bathroom stall if your offer was excepted. Err.. something like that. :) Ah, well - sweet game - look forward to finding one!

That’s a Wrap

It is funny how the truck always ends up coming home a little more full than when we arrived. :) Keep an eye on your games, they will multiply before you know it!

After an awesome weekend we were loaded up and headed back to the Gulf Coast with only one casualty. RIP Tubby.

My Full Photo Gallery from 2018 SFGE is here: https://images.eyedyllic.com/Hobbies/SFGE-2018/n-LxrDNw/

Southern Fried Shenanigans

Southern Fried Gameroom Expo (SFGE) 2017 was last weekend in Atlanta.   SFGE is a special show, made large by a tremendous group of people who are organizing it.   When I look at SFGE in comparison to other arcade & pinball events that I've been to, I see SFGE as a 'self-made' sort of success.   For instance, Pinball Expo takes place in essentially the cradle of coin op amusements & Free Play Florida happens in conjunction with IAAPA, an industry trade show. 

Not to diminish those shows one bit, they are awesome as well.  However, it is a treat to see an Oasis of gaming culture thriving in the Southeast, in a region without the rich amusement history & vendor presence.

I like that this show represents a variety of gaming: arcade, pinball, console gaming, indie games & more.

I did a quick Facebook live walkthrough of the show floor, looks like it got downsampled for streaming but probably good enough to put you in the Saturday peek action.

The Setup

Thursday night, through Friday morning - volunteer bring games through a service elevator and they get set up in the space.   In a span of hours, a-mostly empty ball-room is converted into an impressive and thriving functional free-play arcade.

I took possession of my new Tales of the Arabian Nights early Saturday morning and got the opportunity to install a ColorDMD and get it set up on the gaming floor for Saturday's festivities.

Attendance Impressions

Saturday is definitely the busiest day of the weekend with a steady stream of folks coming in all day long.  

The Games

I was excited to get to play Scott Danesi's Total (Nuclear) Annihilation pin that Spooky Pinball will be producing.  

So, how much fun can it be playing pinball on a prototype whitewood game?   Lots, actually!  The game has clever rules, a bad ass sound track and nicely thematic animations on the ColorDMD.    It features a nice multiplayer dynamic that was conducive to 4-Up playing. Here,  Charlie & I had to find some way to pass the time while Eric mercilessly stole our locked balls.

All weekend, I never saw the glass off of TNA.  It performed like a champ, chewing up and spitting out player after player.   One time, I saw Scott showing the internals and had to snap the picture out of appreciation for a job well done and innovation. 

 

Dialed In

It was great to get to spend some time on Dialed In.  Despite the luke-warm reception concerning the game's theme - this is a special game, for sure.  Tons of magnets, excellent flow and plenty to shoot at.   With headphones in, I got a chance to hear the games audio and it was impressive indeed!  JJP & Pat Lawlor have a hit on their hands with this game.

Houdini

American Pinball's Houdini was on the floor and available to play.  It was an impressive shooting game with excellent theming and a very "Williams" feel to it. 

Ice Cold Beer

I was pretty stoked to get to spend some time on Ice Cold Beer, which is a game I wouldn't mind owning eventually, unique & fun!

Quick N Crash

Speaking of unique games, Quick & Crash was a super fun shooting-alley game with practical effects.   The game dynamic is centered around a quick-draw motion and the game uses a Pepper's Ghost illusion to approximate a realistic effect of breaking glass.   Super. Freaking. Cool.

Metallica

One of the Metallica's in the show won a show-award, though the specific Metallica pictured here, while Nathan stomped my butt - was the nicest Metallica I've ever seen.   Excellent lighting and custom plating from PinballPlating.com

The Vendors

Marco Specialities had a strong showing with many of the latest Stern machines on the floor to play.

Personalities

This year's show had John from John's Arcade, Ben Heck, Billy Mitchell, Walter Day, Dirty Donny, the guys from Broken Token & many more.

Sky Skipper!

The Sky Skipper world reveal!    Arcade history in the making..

Morning, Noon & Night

My morning ritual developed around expresso, plus a latte and a few games on a Tapper Cocktail table near the show floor entrance.

In case you were wondering, The CheeseCake Factory does indeed make a proper Old Fashioned, including the flamed orange twist.

The show seemed to strike a solid balance between being a family event during the day and early evening but having grown-up time in the later evening as well.  Everyone was well behaved & respectful, though it appears that Pac-man might have gone a little too far one night. 

The Tear Down

Here our pile of games sat as we prepared to stage at the freight elevator.  Cody's Paragon; Charlie's Street Fighter II, Genesis & NBA Fast Break; Nathan's Strikres and Spares & Blackout, my Tales of the Arabian Nights. 

It is incredible (and a little sad) to see the convention area go from a thriving arcade to a mostly-empty room in just over 2 hours but it is a testament to the well-oiled machine that is this show's volunteer team.

While I've been to these shows in the past, I've always held a pretty stand-offish opinion regarding bringing my games to shows.  I guess, mostly it was the lazy devil on my shoulder, convincing the hyper-angel on my other shoulder that the games might get damaged by careless strangers and the trouble of traveling with a game isn't worth the effort.  

The mental calculus of that proposition that I didn't take into account was the family of enthusiasts that put on this show, the overwhelmingly positive experience & support of the show organizers and the desire to contribute to help the show be all that it can be, for the sake of spreading love for this hobby.    After this trip, my mind was changed. I considered SFGE, even though it is 5 miles away, to be my "home" show and I look forward to bringing more blinky-light furniture again next year for visitors to enjoy.

Southern Fried Gameroom Expo 2016

This summer I was happy to get to attend Southern Fried Gameroom Expo in Atlanta with my family and along with fellow arcade and pin collecting friends.  These events are always better if you can share them! 

The SFGE folks put on another great show.  It is impressive considering this is only their (3rd?) year of doing this show  - just how well it all comes together.  In fact, this year the show moved to a new venue to accommodate the growth / popularity of the event.  

In 2016, the event was hosted at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta.

My family appreciated the new venue.   Spacious rooms and clean rooms, friendly staff and roomy venue area, all walking distance to a nearby mall via a sky-bridge with good eats and shopping.

Miles staging his Mario toys out, getting ready of a day of gaming fun.

Who doesn't like a glass elevator, except for maybe Wreck-It Ralph? Jena approved, though.

Opening day, a respectable line waiting for the doors to open.

The event coordinators handled the morning /day one rush and constant comings-and-goings with professionalism and efficiency.  An organized, well-oiled machine.    Speaking of machines, the repair volunteers did a great job of keeping games going throughout the weekend.

Tournament Play

There were some real proud-dad moments watching Jena play in her first ranked tournament match.  In fact, maybe I should have spent less time being proud and more time playing better; she qualified ahead of me in standings :)

JJP

Being a JJP loyalist / I would start off with JJP, right? JJP and Flip-n-Out pinball brought two Hobbits, a WOZ and a MMR.

Whenever I look at Hobbit, I'm struck with just how awesome the game looks.  It is gorgeous and it exudes quality in person.   I have complex opinions regarding this pin.  On one hand, I think it looks great / sounds great and it was quite fun to play.    On the other hand, I'm not really into Tolkien stuff, I'm not a LOTR or Hobbit fan.   I guess maybe a symptom of my rampant ADD, I've never been able to sit through the books or the movies enough to really care what's going on.

In fairness, my complex opinions towards this pin might be colored by a largely disappointing pre-order experience with a particular JJP Distributor.

In the end, I think The Hobbit, is much like LOTR, at least to me.  Whenever I'd play LOTR in a setting full of noise and distraction, I really didn't get the love that people have for the game.   As I got to play a few good examples of the pin and go through the modes, learn the shots LOTR opened up for me. "AHA! I get it now, this is a really fun pin."   

Same goes for Hobbit.  I don't think a show is the best environment to really experience what Hobbit has going for it.   You really need to hear it, see it and feel the shots as you go through mode progression to fully appreciate the game.   Hobbit is a great second game from JJP.    WOZ was a hard act to follow.   Is The Hobbit better than WOZ?   As a matter of opinion, I don't think it is.  But WOZ might also be among the best games ever made..  

Jack's presentation covered his storied history in the industry, a Q&A format with a follow-on slide deck of some of the awesome things going on at JJP.   They continue to build Hobbits, will be building more WOZ 75th games and are staging for their next title.  From the sounds of it, the next title will scuttle the preorder-payment model and follow a more concise announce / reveal, sell and ship schedule similar to Stern.     

If you've never met Jack in person, you should endeavor to make it to a show and get some face time with him.   He's a super-sharp guy and his influence has raised the bar for pinball in quality, innovation (and price..)  Jack is good people.

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters, the hype is real.     In my short time in this hobby, I haven't seen anything in the pin community like the response to this pin.    This show was the first change for many folks to get their first plays in one of several Ghostbusters games brought to the show by Marco Specialities.

Want to check out Ghostbusters LE? That's it in the center of the frame and this is the line to get to it.

The Ghostbusters pins at the show had a line behind them, constantly.    I would love to have gotten their play counts, though the SM VE next to it got around 500 plays for the weekend.   (Not as much as I would have expected)

My impressions?   Ghostbusters if fun, fast and challenging.  Ball times are generally short, less than 1/3 of folks appeared to start Storage Facility Multiball.  I noticed two people get Mass Hysteria, in the full weekend.   The artwork is.., well art.  Gorgeous.   Nearly TOTAN-level of gorgeous in my humble opinion.   

I couldn't hear the sound very well during the show but I recently found a GB in the wild at a Movie theater and got to enjoy the full sound experience - it sounded great.   I can see, though that some of the callouts and sounds might end up being repetitive after a lot of play.   

The pro and the LE played differently.  I think the pro was a little harder, though the LE was plenty difficult.  I *really* liked the magnetic slings in the LE.  They often worked like regular slings but when they didn't - it was cool. Something fresh, something different.   Apparently Marco set them to "Very Active" in game settings.

The LE/ Slimer Mech did experience some problems a few times during the show.  At some point they had to disable him entirely.  As far as I could tell, the pros experienced no problems.   Negative Reinforcement was spelled wrong on the pro. :)

I did get to put my initials on one of the games, though I'm sure I didn't hold GC for the weekend.

At one point, there was a Ghostbusters 1-Ball tournament.  I was proud of Jena for stepping up for some tournament action, this trip.   The the video below, the GB Pro I was playing was super-tilty, or maybe the sun was in my eyes?  Playing up-hill in the snow.... :)

I spent much of my pinball time at this show running back and fourth between Hobbit and Ghostbusters.   I liked them both but for different reasons.  

Which one comes home with me? For now, Ghostbusters.  I love the theme, the art is cool and it fills a play / gameplay style hole in my pin lineup.    

All in all, Stern has a smash-hit in Ghostbusters.  Now they just have to catch up with demand.  I expect they will be making this game for years.    Looking forward to my Premium in a few weeks.

WNBJM

What can I say about Whoa Nelly Big Juicy Melons?  I was surprised how much fun I had playing this title.  I don't think I'll ever buy one but I did really enjoy it.

...and at the end of the day, who doesn't like Big Juicy Melons?  It is summer after all..

Marco had an excellent showing at this event. Really appreciate the new titles they brought out for us to play!

Getting Our Game On

I tried to balance my time between pins an arcades because I really love both.   While most of the pinball tables constantly had lines, the arcades were quite accessible.

I would like to have one of these! Love these setups

I had to double check which finger was up when he waved at me.. Very movie accurate. :)

As always, a pleasure to meet a member of the 501st!

SFGE this year was a blast.  The weekend went by really too quickly.  As, I came home and flipped the lights on in the game room it was a bitter-sweet moment; a mixture appreciation for the fun games I have but sorry the fun weekend of arcade festivities was over.  

All the more reason to go back next year!